Body supporting garments



Feb. 20, 1962 R. H. SMITH BODY SUPPORTING GARMENTS Filed May l, 1959 D..1.11. ..\...\.,.b. ...1.1. rit.

INVENTOR. RAYMND H. SMITH ilnited tates Patent 3,021,845 BODY SUPEGRTENGGARMENTS Raymond H. Smith, Fairfield, Conn., assigner to The La ResistaCorset Company, Bridgeport, Conn., a corporation of Connecticut FiledMay 1, 1959, Ser. No. 816,335 1 Claim. (Cl. 12d-463) The presentinvention relates to body supporting garments such as brassieres and thelike, and particularly to molding and supporting insert members forincorporation in such garments.

It is particularly proposed to provide a laminated insert memberconstructed entirely of textile fabric material, as distinguished fromprevious known insert members which employed plastic sheet material,metal foil, and other such non-textile materials as a stiifening layerof a laminated structure. It is proposed according to the invention toprovide a laminated insert member having outer textile fabric layershaving suitable textile characteristics, for adaptation in the garmentto provide outer and inner surfaces substantially conforming inappearance and feel to the textile fabrics making up the major structureof the garment, and to provide an intermediate stiffening layer of wovenfabric material of a special type having the characteristic of beingrelatively stilf in one direction, for instance vertically, andrelatively flexible in the other direction, for instance laterally.'Ille resulting structure has the advantage of porosity, washability andadaptation to the normal manufacturing procedures employed in theproduction of brassieres and similar garments, having Capability ofbeing easily cut to shape, stitched in place, and otherwise handled insimilar manner to other textile fabrics normally employed in suchgarments.

It has been found that a suitable textile material for carrying out thepurposes of the inventon is the woven fabric material known as Kendallcloth, as disclosed in the U.S. patent to R. C. Whitman 2,409,089 ofOctober 8, 1946, for Directionally Stiff Woven Fabric and Method,assigned to The Kendall Company of Boston, Mass. This woven fabric hasmuch greater stiffness in one yarn direction than in the other andconsists of sets of warp and lling yarn interwoven with each other, oneset of yarn consisting mainly of fused cellulosic grouped yarnsmaterially stier than those of the other set and providing greaterstiffness in their direction. By disposing such woven fabric in thelaminated structure with the yarns of greater stiffness disposed in thedirection in which the stiffness is to be imparted to the insert member,such member is produced having the desirable characteristics of beingsufhciently stiff in one direction to provide the desired molding andsupporting characteristics of the insert while being also suficientlyiiexible in said one direction to allow the insert to comfortablyconform to the body surfaces, and of being exible to a high degree inthe other direction, so that in the case of incorporation of suchmembers in the breast cups of brassieres they may be freely curved tothe rounded form of such cups and will have the desired degree ofyieldability.

Other objects and advantages will become apparent from a considerationof the following detailed description taken in connection with theaccompanying drawings wherein a satisfactory embodiment of the inventionis shown. However, it will be understood that the invention is notlimited to the details disclosed but includes all such variations andmodications as fall within the spirit of the invention and the scope ofthe appended claim.

In the drawings:

FIG. l is a plan view showing the outer side of an insert memberaccording to the invention with portions of the intermedaite and outerlayers broken away;

3,@2l45 Patented Feb. 20, 19652 cup, the remaining outline of the cupbeing shown in dotand-dash lines;

FIG. 5 is a side view;

FIG. 6 is a top plan View;

FiG. 7 is a diagrammatic sectional view showing the fabric laminationsof the insert member in separated relation;

FIG. 8 is a diagrammatic sectional view showing assembled laminatedstructure of the insert member; and

FIG. 9 is a diagrammatic plan view of a piece of Kendall cloth.

Referring to the drawings, the insert member according to theillustrated exemplary embodiment of the invention comprises a laminatedstructure consisting of an intermediate layer of woven fabric materiali0 having relatively greater stiffness in one direction than in theother, an outer layer Il which may be of any suitable flexible woven orknitted fabric material, and an inner layer l2 which also may be of anysuitable flexible woven or knitted fabric material and is preferablyprovided with a raised nap 13 at its outer side to impart to the innersurface of the insert member a soft felt or flannel-like texture wherethe insert member incorporated in the garment contacts the skin of thewearer. The laminations are adhered together by adhesive layers 14 and15 shown in FIG. 7 as coated upon the surfaces of the intermediate layerlti, so that the outer and inner layers 11 and 12 may be pressed intoadhered relation to the intermediate layer as shown in FIG. 8. It willbe understood that adherance of the layers may be carried out in anysuitable manner, for instance, the adhesive layers may first be appliedat the inner sides of the layers l1 and l2, or a thin film of adhesivemay be interposed between the surfaces and adherence accomplishedthrough heat and pressure.

A woven fabric material satisfactory for use as the intermediate layer10 is so-called Kendall cloth, of the type as shown in FIG. 9 and asdisclosed in the patent to Whitman heretofore referred to. Acharacteristic feature of this fabric is that the yarns in onedire-ction are relatively stiif, while the yarns in the other directionare relatively exible. In order to produce this result in thisparticular type of material, it has been found that one set of yarns ofa woven fabric may be made reactive to chemical treatment to render themmany times stiffer than the other set. For example, if a cotton fabricis made with a warp consisting of unscoured or gray cotton yarn, and thefilling also is of cotton but is scoured and bleached, it is thenentirely feasible to gc1at inize the scoured or bleached cotton yarns byimpregnating 4the fabric with a fusing agent, a solution of Zincchloride for example, and thus stiifen the latter yarns to a verysubstantial degree without producing any marked effect on the grayyarns. The difference in the reactivity of the bleached and unbleachedcotton fibres to the action of fusing agents apparently is due primarilyto the fact that raw cotton contains considerable amounts of naturalwaxes, oils, or similar protective agents which render the unbleachedcotton libres Krelatively inert to the action of zinc chloride and othergelatinizing or fusing agents. Later, these protective constitutents canbe removed, as by kier boiling, and the entire fabric thus can be madeto present a substantially uniform and entirely satisfactory appearance.

In FIG. 9 the stiffened yarns are shown as each consisting of two yarnstwisted together to form a single strand, one of the yarns indicated asS having twist in one direction, known in the art as S-twist, and theothe-r yarn indicated as Z having twist `in the opposite direction,known in the art as Z-twist. The purpose of this, as pointed out in theWhitman patent, is to balance or neutralize the normal tendency of thestilened yarns to twist more tightly as a result of gelatinization witha consequent tendency of the woven and stifened cloth to curl at thecorners of the fabric.

The insert member 16 for incorporation in the lower portion of thebreast cups 1'7 of the brassiere 1S is cut from the laminated fabricmaterial to the desired shape, for instance it has a convexly curvedlower edge 19 and an upper edge 2t) suitably shaped to the desireddesign of the brassiere cup, the material being disposed so that itsdirection of greater stiffness is vertically of the insert member. Theinsert members are incorporated in the brassiere structure by the normalprocedures usually employed in the manufacture of such garments, the-laminated fabric material of the insert member being secured at itsedges to adjacent fabric material by normal machine stitching. It willbe understood that if desired the insert members may be placed asunstitched inserts in pocket formations of the breast cups.

FIGS. 4-6 illustrate the manner in which the insert member conforms tothe lower portion of the brassiere cup, the lateral ilexibility of themember permitting it to be readily bent into the curved shape to conformits lower edge to the loweirounded edge of the cup. The relativestiffness of the member along lines extending between the upper andlower edges provide effectual molding and uplifting support.

What is claimed is:

A flexible laminated garment insert having substantially greaterstiiness in one direction than in a transverse direction at right anglest-o said one direction, comprising outer and inner co-extensive layersof iiexible fabric material each having substantially uniformilexibility in all directions, an intermediate stiiening layer of wovenfabric material co-extensive with said outer and inner layers, andadhesive layers co-extensive with and disposed between the oppositesides of said intermediate layer and said outer and inner layers, saidintermediate woven layer comprising sets of warp and filling yarnsinterwoven with each other, the yarns of each set extending throughoutthe entire area of said intermediate layer in uniformly spaced relation,one of said sets being parallel to said one direction and consisting ofyarns substantially stiffer than those of the other set and providinggreater stiifness to said insert in its said one direction, and theyarns of said other set providing greater exibility to said insert inits said transverse direction.

References Cited in the tile of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS2,409,089 Whitman Oct. 8, 1946 2,686,312 Schmidt Aug. 17, 1954 2,915,067Bracht Dec. l, 1959

